John Lewis Fellowship Program in Atlanta

Program Description

After two successful years examining diversity and civil rights in America through the lens of the American South, in its third year the John Lewis Fellowship is expanding its thematic focus to restorative justice in Atlanta, Georgia. In partnership with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Humanity in Action intends to refocus the Atlanta program around the way one city is dealing with histories of division, discrimination and racism. As such, Fellows will explore what restorative justice would mean in Atlanta in the coming years; how to build a community that encourages knowledge of and responsibility for past injustices and looks toward greater unity through both a common understanding of the past and rectifications in the future.

The four-week inquiry and resulting blueprint for restorative justice will involve a multidisciplinary approach. Fellows, speakers and staff will produce a blueprint – "An Appeal for Human Rights and Restorative Justice" for the city. Fellows will look at this concept from many different perspectives as the issues infuse both public life and individual attitudes and responsibilities: education, health, the law, residential patterns, police practices, urban planning, local and state government, religious institutions, the arts and restoration of historic sites and areas. Consequently, the program will draw upon informed and inspiring academics from many disciplines as well as those in journalism, urban affairs, religion, government, public health, the law and NGOs.

The goal of Humanity in Action and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights is to create a program for emerging leaders to learn, engage in intellectual discourse, propose solutions and develop the skill-sets needed to bring forth effective social, political and economic changes that improves the lives within and beyond the United States. In the past two years, the curriculum of the John Lewis program focused on the history and global impact of the Civil Rights Movement, immigration reform and Native American issues. Fellows participated in discussions with renowned scholars, activists and political leaders who have dedicated themselves to advancing civil and human rights in the United States and beyond. In 2016, Fellows also produced a collection of reflections about their experiences in the John Lewis program, delving into personal aspects of their own identities – such as national, ethnic, gender, racial, or religious – and ways in which participation in the program has shaped their personal outlooks and perspectives on democracy and diversity.

Please note that this is the 2017 agenda.

2017 Agenda

July 5

Check-In and Welcome Reception

Humanity in Action and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights welcome the third cohort of John Lewis Fellows to Atlanta, Georgia. Fellows will arrive at Georgia State University Commons to check into their assigned suites, where they will have three hours to settle into their living spaces. An evening welcome reception is planned at Paschal’s Restaurant and fellows will meet program staff, peers Humanity in Action Founder and Executive Director, Judith Goldstein. During dinner, each fellow and staff member will share a personal item that represents an aspect of their home country and their passion for human rights.

9:00AM-2:00PM Fellows arrive and check into Georgia State University Commons

2:00PM-7:00PM Leisure Time

7:00PM-9:00PM Welcome Reception at Paschal’s Restaurant

July 6

Introduction and Orientation

The John Lewis Fellows will be formally welcomed to the program by Humanity in Action and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights. The orientation will focus on the content of the fellowship program and rules and norms of engagement that will allow for the most productive experience for the fellows. Fellows and staff will discuss the program schedule, educational process, community norms and rules, and the fellows’ end-of-program presentations. The focus of this year’s program is on the New Appeal for Civil Rights, which was authored in 2017 by a coalition of student activists in consultation with civil rights veterans, Dr. Roslyn Pope, Charles Black and Lonnie King. Each fellow will produce an oral and written expression of how her exposure to the City of Atlanta and what she has learned about its civil rights history and legacy has informed her perspective on one of the human rights demands expressed in the Appeal.

9:00AM-9:30AM Greeting and Introduction to National Center for Civil and Human Rights

July 7

Awareness and Activism: Student and Ecclesiastic Engagement in the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta

Fellows will learn about the mood of Atlanta’s black population in the 1960’s when Dr. Roslyn Pope and other student leaders decided to put their demands in writing. Dr. Pope will describe the condition of Jim Crow and its impact on the individuals and communities who suffered its indignity and restrictions, and she will share what motivated her to catalogue and detail the violations at issue, to identify them as human rights infringements and to demand liberation from them. Fellows will also learn about the role and contributions of the black clergy and church in the civil rights movement in Atlanta.

9:00AM-9:10AM Morning Announcements

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:10AM-9:30PM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:30PM-12:00PM An Appeal for Human Rights

Dr. Roslyn Pope (Professor and Author of An Appeal for Human Rights, 1960)

Dr. Roslyn Pope (Professor and Author of An Appeal for Human Rights, 1960)

4:30PM-4:45PM Break

4:45PM-5:30PM Fellows’ Reflection Circle

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

5:30PM-5:45PM Daily Wrap-Up

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

July 8

Race, Place & Space in Atlanta: A Tour of the City and Its Civil Rights Legacy

Courtesy of Civil Rights Tours Atlanta, students will take a 3-hour tour of the city, narrated by Tom Houck, who was Dr. Martin Luther King’s former driver and aide. This tour brings Atlanta’s legacy to life allowing fellows to experience the places, spaces and neighborhoods where heroes and sheroes of the movement made decisions that changed Atlanta and America. The tour also allows fellows to reflect on how development and changing demographics in the city will affect the city’s legacy of inclusion and diversity.

10:00AM Meet at MLK Visitor Center

11:00AM-2:00PM Civil Rights Tour (Fellows will be returned to MLK Visitor Center)

July 9

No programming.

July 10

Fellows will learn how current civil and human rights realities are a reactionary consequence of white supremacy, traceable to before and after the dawn of America’s constitutional democracy. This perspective will assist fellows’ understanding of contemporary obstacles to human and civil rights goals, racial equality, and inclusion within the broader framework of American history and will inform their understanding of how these obstacles can be overcome and/or circumvented. Fellows will learn about reactions to human rights advocacy from stakeholders in the status quo and how those reactions create challenges to and opportunities for change.

Dr. Carole Anderson (Professor and Chair of the African American Studies Department, Emory University and Author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Nation’s Racial Divide)

12:00PM-1:30PM Lunch

1:30PM-3:20PM Reactions to An Appeal for Human Rights

Dr. Roslyn Pope (Professor and Author of An Appeal for Human Rights, 1960)

3:20PM-3:35PM Break

3:35PM-4:45PM Fellows’ Reflection Circle

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

4:45PM-5:45PM Fellows’ Country Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

5:45PM-6:00PM Daily Wrap-Up

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

July 11

Historical Redux: A Question of Humanity

Continuing with the theme of the resurgence of historical resistance to recognizing the full humanity of Black Americans, fellows will focus on how colonization informed the concept of race and created a racial hierarchy that dictated the diminished humanity of black people and others considered inferior. Fellows will explore how the colonizer-settler framework continues to operate to frustrate efforts to eradicate human rights violations, and they will be challenged to imagine what human rights would look like if the hierarchy produced by colonization were eradicated. Fellows will consider various strategies, tactics and expressions of agency, employed by blacks in the US to liberate and defend themselves, to assert their full humanity and to access the rights to which they are entitled under the US Constitution. Fellows will also examine health in the context of human rights and how historical, racial discrimination and racialized deprivations have affected generations of Black Americans and continue to compromise the health of black individuals and communities.

9:00AM-9:10AM Morning Announcements

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:10AM-9:30AM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:30PM-10:15PM Fellows’ Reflection Circle

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

10:15PM-10:30PM Break

10:30PM-12:00PM Race and Settler Colonialism in the United States Today

Natsu Saito (Professor of Law and Distinguished University Professor, Georgia State University)

12:00PM-1:30PM Lunch

1:45PM-3:00PM Black Agency, Advocacy and Resistance

Dr. Akinyele Umoja (Professor and Chair of the African American Studies Department, Georgia State University)

3:00PM-3:15PM Break

3:15PM-4:30PM Fellows Tour Law School Exhibit: Health is a Human Right: Race and Place in America

4:30PM-5:45PM Fellows’ Country Presentations

5:45PM-6:00PM Daily Wrap-Up

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

July 12

A Curator’s Craft

Fellows will experience a full day of exposure to civil and human rights through the visual arts. Presenters will include museum curators and established and upcoming artists using their skills and talents to address contemporary manifestations of racism and racial discrimination and to celebrate the humanity, creativity and genius of black people and communities. Presenters will address some of the obstacles that make their work so important and challenging. Presentations will take place in the historic and outstanding Clark Atlanta University Art Gallery, which houses the collective works of some of the leading African-American visual artists of the twentieth century and contemporary works of some of the nation’s leading and emerging visual artists depicting the black experience.

July 13

Community, Development and Gentrification

Fellows will hear from former Mayor Shirley Franklin, the first female Mayor of Atlanta and the first black woman to serve as mayor of a major southern city, about her work as a public servant and public official and the importance of the National Center of Civil and Human Rights as a means of preserving and promoting Atlanta’s civic identity. The fellows will be exposed to important lessons from the civil rights movement that should inform approaches to solving contemporary challenges facing black people and communities. Fellows will also learn about the economic development planned for the city of Atlanta and the potential impact of these plans on communities of color in the contexts of housing and public health. Fellows will be introduced to scholars who research urban development and renewal, community engagement and displacement, racialized housing and zoning policies and the causes and consequences of gentrification. Fellows will be challenged to consider how to achieve a balance between strengthening and maintaining vulnerable communities of color and facilitating growth, inclusion and development in Atlanta as a whole.

9:00AM-9:10AM Morning Announcements

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:10AM-9:30AM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:30AM-11:00AM Leadership and the Creation of a Center Committed to Civil and Human Rights

Shirley Franklin (Barbara Jordan Visiting Professor of Ethics and Political Values, University of Texas School of Public Policy and Former Mayor of the City of Atlanta 2002-2010)

Professor John Travis Marshall (Assistant Law Professor, Georgia State University)

5:00PM-5:15PM Break

5:15PM-5:35PM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

5:35PM-5:50PM Daily Wrap-UP

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

July 14

Housing As a Human Right: Preserving and Creating Affordability

Fellows will continue their exploration of the challenges inherent in reconciling aggressive economic development plans with meaningful inclusion and protection of vulnerable communities of color and the poor. Fellows will learn about innovative efforts by city planners, architects, and organizations to address this challenge, within full view of the City’s historic, racialized realties.

9:00AM-9:10AM Morning Announcements

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:10AM-9:30AM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:30AM-10:30AM Preserving Atlanta’s Civic Identity and Culture as an Inclusive and Diverse Place

Dr. Stuart Romm (Professor of the Practice, Georgia Institute of Technology College of Architecture)

12:00PM-1:30PM Lunch

1:45PM-4:15PM The Transformative Power of Transit

The Transformation Alliance

4:30PM-5:30PM Fellows’ Reflection Circle

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

5:30PM-5:45PM Daily Wrap-UP

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

July 15

A Spoken Word Experience

Fellows will attend Under My Hood Truth Experience, a spoken word presentation at the National Center for Human Rights. The event will provide fellows with an opportunity to experience artistic expression devoted to the diminished humanity of black people and black males in particular in contemporary society and to the illusory nature of the identities in which we cloak ourselves.

6:00PM-9:00PM Under My Hood Truth Experience

Coleman G. Howard (Author, yoga practitioner, speaker and poet)

July 16

The King Church

Fellows will visit the historic Ebenezer Baptist Church for an 11:30 worship service. Ebenezer describes itself as an urban-based, global ministry dedicated to individual growth and social transformation.

11:30AM-1:00PM Ebeneezer Service

July 17

In Black and Blue: Criminal (In)Justice

Fellows will focus on how structural and institutional racism impact individuals and communities in the criminal justice context. Fellows will hear about a range of reform efforts targeting laws, policies, and practices that make individuals of color and communities of color vulnerable to racialized policing, police brutality and mass incarceration. Fellows will be introduced to activists, lawyers, advocates, and organizations working to protect the rights of black people and communities of color and for the recognition of their full humanity. Fellows will also explore the value of and reactions to youth activism in contemporary social and political movements and consider whether and how contemporary challenges around racialized policing are similar to historical relations among the police and black people and communities.

July 18

An Exploration of Restoration

Fellows will learn about restorative justice as a framework, approach and tool for achieving ends centered on rehabilitating and empowering victims of racial discrimination, oppression and violence. Fellows will also learn about the history of the racialized and oppressive treatment of Native Americans by the federal government and the state of Georgia and explore how historical facts have been distorted to mask this mistreatment. Fellows will consider the use of a restorative justice approach in Atlanta 2017 to address contemporary challenges that infringe on citizens’ human rights, as expressed in the New Appeal for Human Rights. This approach could inform efforts to address Atlanta’s contemporary challenges over the next several years.

9:00AM-9:10AM Morning Announcements

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:10AM-9:30AM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:30AM-12:00PM Restorative Justice: A Means of and An End to Achieving Empowerment

Professor David Hooker (Professor of the Practice of Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame)

12:00PM-1:30PM Lunch

1:30PM-2:30PM Fellows will view the movie The Canary Effect by Robin Davey and Yellow Thunder Woman

2:30PM-2:45PM Break

2:45PM-4:00PM Fellows’ Reflection Circle

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

4:00PM-4:15PM Break

4:15PM-5:00PM Fellows’ Personal Presentations (4)

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

6:00PM-7:00PM Daily Wrap-Up

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

July 19

Museum Exhibits Shaping Perspectives

Fellows will visit the historic Herndon Home Museum, a historic house and National Historic Landmark, which reflects Atlanta’s distinctive development as a center for Black business, education, and culture. From Alonzo Herndon’s rise from slavery to leadership in the Black business community, the history of the Herndons provides a unique resource of local and national significance in the interpretation of Black struggle and achievement. Fellows will also visit the Atlanta History Center, where they will tour 3 exhibits: Gatheround: Stories of Atlanta; Shaping Traditions: Folk Art in a Changing South; and Native Lands: Indians and Georgia. Viewing these exhibitions will allow fellows to consider how museum exhibits shape public perception and perspectives on the history of racial discrimination and existing racialized realities. Fellows will also have the opportunity to hear and learn from Native American scholar and prolific author, Ward Churchill, about contemporary challenges facing Native Americans and their communities.

9:00AM-9:10AM Morning Announcements

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:10AM-9:30AM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

10:15AM-11:30AM Fellows will tour Herndon Home Museum

11:30AM-1:00PM Lunch

1:00PM-3:30PM Fellows will tour Gatheround: Stories of Atlanta; Shaping Traditions: Folk Art in a Changing South; and Native Lands: Indians and Georgia at the Atlanta History Center

3:30PM-6:00PM Break

6:00PM-8:00PM Lecture and Book Signing of Wielding Words Like Weapons: Selected Essays in Indigenism, National Center for Civil and Human Rights

Professor Ward Churchill (Author, speaker and activist)

July 20

Coalitions Of Intersecting Identities

Fellows will focus on organizations and groups organized around a human rights agenda that serves multiple and diverse constituencies and the challenges and opportunities that these coalitions present. Fellows will consider how the current political climate has inspired more of these coalitions. Fellows will hear from Attorney Andrea Young, Andrew Young’s daughter, who currently heads the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia and whose career has centered on promoting policies to defend and extend civil and human rights. Fellows will also meet and speak with youth activists and students who authored the New Appeal for Human Rights and with civil rights veterans, who helped with the New Appeal. The Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum will provide an outstanding setting for an inter-generational discussion about priorities, strategies and approaches to addressing contemporary human rights violations.

9:00AM-9:10AM Morning Announcements

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:10AM-9:30AM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:30AM-10:45AM Continued Relevance of the ACLU as a Bulwark Against Human and Civil Rights Violations

Attorney Andrea Young (Author and Director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Georgia)

10:45AM-11:00AM Break

11:00AM-12:30PM Lunch and movie Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin

2:00PM-4:00PM A New Appeal for Civil and Human Rights at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library

Emiko Soltis (Student Author of New Appeal, Activist, Organizer)

Asma Elhuni (Student Author of New Appeal, Activist, Organizer)

Dr. Roslyn Pope (Professor and Author of An Appeal for Human Rights, 1960)

Charles Black (Civil Rights Veteran, Organizer and Activist)

Lonnie King (Civil Rights Veteran, Organizer and Activist)

July 21

Towards A More Inclusive Human Rights Agenda

Fellows will examine the role of discrimination on the basis of gender and sexual orientation as an integral aspect of the modern human rights movement. Fellows will discuss the role that LGBTQ+ people and communities played in the civil rights movement in Atlanta and how and why their presence and contributions have been concealed and/or “sequestered.” Fellows will learn about Georgia Equality and the work of its membership targeting laws, policies and practices that discriminate against members of the LGTBQ+ community.

9:00AM-9:10AM Morning Announcements

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:10AM-9:30AM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:30AM- 10:45AM Georgia Equality

Jeff Graham (Executive Director, Georgia Equality)

Dr. Matthew Robison (Board Member, Georgia Equality)

12:30PM-2:30PM Georgia Stand Up Community Meeting at IBEW Building

3:00PM-4:30PM Fellows’ Reflection Circle

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

4:45PM-5:00PM Daily Wrap-Up

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

July 22

No programming.

July 23

No programming.

July 24

History and Symbolism: A Visit to Stone Mountain

Fellows will spend the day touring Stone Mountain, which Dr. Martin Luther King referenced in his legendary “I Have a Dream” speech, as an example of an environment marked by racial discrimination. The experience will allow fellows to consider the current controversy surrounding the presence of statutes commemorating civil war heroes, who supported slavery and racial discrimination. Fellows will visit the Confederate Hall Historical and Environmental Education Center and take a skyride to the top of Stone Mountain for an up-close look at the Confederate Memorial Carving of President Jefferson Davis and Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Fellows will discuss proposals to include a monument to Dr. Martin Luther King at the park.

10:00AM Meet at Georgia State College of Law 85 Park Place NE / Atlanta, GA 30315

10:00AM-4:00PM Fellows will tour Stone Mountain and select exhibits

6:00PM-8:00PM A Trek to the River’s Edge: Movie Showing and Discussion at National Center for Civil and Human Rights

Althea Brown (Director and Producer, A Trek to the River’s Edge)

July 25

Race, Religion and Citizenship: Immigration and Inclusion

Fellows will consider the large-scale contemporary immigration crisis in full view of state and national policies targeting vulnerable Latino people and communities and profiling Muslims and refugees seeking admission into the US and into the state of Georgia. The issue of sanctuary cities and schools is expressed as a moral and human rights imperative in the New Appeal for Human Rights, and the fellows will learn about and discuss the challenges faced by immigrants of various races and religious faiths in this city coined “The City too Busy to Hate.”

July 26

Children in the Movement

In 1963, more than a dozen African American girls, aged 13-15, were held in a stockade for two months for demonstrating for integration in Americus, Georgia. Their parents did not know where their missing girls were for more than two weeks. When the parents’ discovered their whereabouts the only thing they could do was slip food to them through the bars of the window in the room where the girls were held. The girls were released, without ever having been charged, and the parents were charged a $2 boarding fee. Fellows will meet one of those girls, Dr. Shirley Reese, and hear her account of this horrific experience and how it inspired her career in civil and human rights. Fellows will visit and tour the stockade where the girls were held and have lunch in Leesburg.

9:00AM-9:10AM Morning Announcements

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:10AM-9:30AM 2 Fellows Provide Individual Presentations

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

9:30AM-6:00PM Fellows will leave for Stockade in Leesburg, Georgia

5:45PM-6:00PM Daily Wrap-Up (On Bus)

Ufuk Kâhya (Associate Director, John Lewis Fellowship Program)

July 27

Fellows' Action Projects

Fellows’ presentations will be written and artistic expressions focused on the demand in the New Appeal for Human Rights that most appeals to them and proposing a restorative justice approach to addressing the issue at the heart of the selected demand.

9:00AM-5:00PM Fellows' Presentations

July 28

Fellows' Action Projects

Fellows’ presentations will be written and artistic expressions focused on the demand in the New Appeal for Human Rights that most appeals to them and proposing a restorative justice approach to addressing the issue at the heart of the selected demand.

9:00AM-4:00PM Fellows' Presentation

Ufuk Kâhya (Program Associate, John Lewis Fellowship)

July 29

Closing of the Program

In the closing event for the fellowship program, fellows will experience a theatrical performance, centered on the life and work of Congressman John Lewis. Having spent a month learning about and being exposed to the civil rights legacy that is the defining feature of Atlanta, fellows will enjoy a production that celebrates the courage and contributions of this American hero, after which this fellowship program is named.

2:00PM-4:00PM Collision Project Through the Alliance Theatre: Performance of John Lewis’ “The March”

July 30

Closing of the Program

On the final day of programming in the fellowship, fellows break bread with Congressman John Lewis and program speakers and presenters at a farewell brunch held in honor of the program’s namesake and to celebrate the John Lewis Fellows’ exploration of civil and human rights during their time in Atlanta.